If these verses be not great,
Let them be better
Than all I have written before
And all that anyone else is writing.

Give me the strength to change
All that cannot be mine
Into my greatest inspiration,
Let me find victory in my defeat,
Words to cover up reality’s bad patches
With all the language allows to glitter.

Keep me drunk enough
To always have sentences to spout,
But sober enough to hold a pen,
Keeping inspiration in place.

If I die before I am great,
Let my death awake
The critics from dogmatic slumbers, and
The readers behind their cozy books,
Let it arrive unannounced,
To improve my standing with both,
And open the gates to the pantheon.